[PS4 Review] Bastion

Review Overview

Excellent

10

10

Rating

Bastion was the first game developed by Supergiant Games. The game was first released as a Xbox 360 exclusive back in November 2011, but now it’s available on PS4. The developers are also known for Transistor. If you liked Transistor, you’re going to love Bastion.

The game takes place in Caelondia in the aftermath of the Calamity, a catastrophic event that caused the world to shatter into a multitude of floating Islands. The entire gameplay experience is dynamically narrated, revealing some of the back-story while also discussing the player’s actions in real-time.

The game has two modes, No-sweat mode, which is kinda like easy mode with an unlimited number of chances to carry on, even if defeated. This is perfect for newbies or players who just want a relaxing gameplay experience with nbo penalties. Normal mode is the standard game mode where players will have a life bar that will deplete as they take hits or fall from the edge. If the life bar completely depletes players will have two more chances to carry on, but once those two chances have been used up, you will have to restart the area again. This option is turned off in No-sweat mode, but you must remember that if you choose to play in No-Sweat Mode, some of the trophies will be voided.

Bastion has got beautiful, vibrant hand-drawn graphics with that have to be seen to marvel at the stunning quality of the graphics. Supergiant Games really did an amazing job with Bastion (which is why Transistor looks as good as it does) and the PS4 version looks as sharp as you’d expect from a

Once players complete the prologue level, you will arrive in Bastion – the game’s hub. As you play levels you will collect cores that allow you to build stuff in Bastion. Such is the case of the forge, used to upgrade your weapons. Players can also build a shrine, where you can invoke idols and increase the difficulty of the game. The idols can be used to enhance your enemies in a variety of ways to ramp up the overall difficulty. There are ten idols to find, and you can invoke as many as you like, and you can also renounce them without penalty if the difficulty get’s too overwhelming. So feel free to experiment with invoking idols, adjusting the difficulty to your liking. It is also a fantastic way to farm for levels much faster, and you will earn a greater number of fragments as well (which are the game’s currency), so if you are up to the challenge it can be very rewarding. Players can also build a distillery that grants passive bonuses. There’s also the arsenal where players can swap their preferred weapons and secret skills. For secret skills to work, players will need to equip a compatible weapon.

You’ll also find proving grounds levels which are like challenges based on weapons found, and the aim of the challenges is to master a weapon within a given time or over a specific number of challenges. There are twelve of these areas to test players and their weapon skills. Each challenge has three prizes to collect, and with each prize you earn the difficulty ramps up a little bit. For example, in the blunderbuss challenge to get the first prize you have to shoot a number of blue spiked balls off the edge in 15 shots or less. This is hard to do without the use of passive bonus tonics and some weapon upgrades, and obtaining all three prizes will require that you hone your skills considerably!

And then we have Who Knows Where, an alternate dream-like world where players can battle wave after wave of enemies, kinda making it an endless mode. Successful completion of Who Knows Where levels will reward players with some XP and a decent amount of fragments. As with previous levels, players are free to replay these levels as they wish. If defeated, you will have to start again from scratch. The levels are tough but very rewarding and worthwhile.

Overall, completing Bastion, including obtaining all the collectibles available, will take you roughly around 12-15 hours, which definitely makes this a long game.